Brit among 95 killed in Spain floods as five OAPs drown in care home and people who left to move cars ‘never return’
A BRIT is among the 95 people killed in Spain's catastrophic floods that turned streets into rapids in the worst cold snap in a century.
Five OAPs died after they tragically drowned in a Valencia care home as torrential rain turned into flash flooding on Tuesday night.
Many more are expected to be found dead after storms, hail and lightning hit the east and south of the country.
Officials said locals were "trapped like rats" by the water and cars were “floating as if they were in a fish bowl”.
Spain's Defence Minister said she is "not optimistic" about how high the death toll could climb and the number of missing is unknown.
One of the dead was a 71-year-old Brit who died from a heart attack in hospital after he was rescued from the floods, a government leader said.
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He was rescued in the outskirts of Alhaurin de la Torre, Malaga, and was suffering from hypothermia when he was recovered from his home.
The man tragically died as he was receiving help from nurses the President of the Andalusian government, Juanma Moreno, said on X.
More rain is expected for the already drenched region with a yellow weather warning in place for north Valencia and southern Catalonia.
The Spanish government has declared three days of mourning with Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez set to visit disaster areas today.
More than 1,000 soldiers have been deployed to help with the search and rescue operation which has already made 2,500 rescues.
The region of Valencia has been hit the hardest - with 92 of the 95 tragic deaths recorded so far in the region.
Five were killed and one reported missing from a care home in the town of Paiporta, just outside Valencia city.
Some 115 people were rescued from the home, but only after the fragile residents had to wheel and hobble through a river of water in the hallways.
Paiporta has seen some of the worst damage from the flooding with 40 people having died there so far.
Mayor of the town, Maribel Albalat, said: "The currents were so quick – and we called the emergency services who started rescuing some people who had water up to their neck."
Describing it as "a total catastrophe", she added that the death toll is expected to rise: "The victims are going to be in their dozens.
"There were a lot of people in their homes which in Paiporta are single-storey and water has entered them and they haven’t been able to get out."
She described "a lot of people who went to move their cars and never came back".
The town on the outskirts of Valencia, now at the epicentre of one of Spain’s worst natural disasters ever, is home to just over 20,000 people.
The rescuer operation is continuing today as workers desperately try to find survivors and bodies in the mud.
Locals hit by the flooding are having to clean rubbish and mud out of their homes after "tsunami"-like walls of water rushed down streets.
The vicious rainfall began at lunchtime on Tuesday, wreaking havoc from the provinces of Malaga in the south to Valencia in the east.
Horror footage showed the moment one woman was swept away in flood waters as two men desperately tried to pull her to safety.
A map released by Spain's meteorological agency AEMET showed how the weather system moved in from the Mediterranean Sea.
It is the worst flood-related natural disaster to hit Spain in almost 30 years - after flooding in 1996 killed 87.
The Dorset woman says she is "lucky to be alive" after being hit by the heavy rain while driving south from their home in Alicante.
Motorway traffic they were travelling on came to a standstill before they realised the bridge ahead of them had been washed away.
Within 10 minutes water started lapping at the car and people were smashing their windows to escape.
She said cars began to float down the road that had turned into a river.
Karen said: "Just after we got out of the car, another car floated on top of our car.
"It was raging, cars were floating about, people were screaming."
The pair managed to climb out of the car's window with the water at chest height before they were picked up by a lorry.
She said: "It was just like a disaster movie. You know when you think 'I could die here'. It was so utterly scary."
President of the Valencia region Carlos Mazon said in a chilling statement: "There are bodies and bodies continuing to appear in places we hadn’t been able to access before."
DEVASTATION ON THE GROUND
Videos shared by Spanish broadcasters show floodwater rising into the lower levels of homes and even carrying cars through the street.
Drivers posted videos online showing horrific conditions on the roads, with many abandoning their vehicles as the water rose.
One clip showed an entire lorry being toppled by a tornado captured on dashcam footage.
Chiva, a town near Valencia, was pummelled by more than a year's worth of rain in just eight hours.
There were fears the Cirat-Vallat dam - in Castellon, north of Valencia, could burst with officials putting out a warning after they couldn't open the gates on Wednesday morning.
The nearby town of Vila-real activated its emergency protocol, ordering those with houses near the Mijares River to evacuate.
Mayor of Horno de Alcedo, a town just outside Valencia, told the BBC that the entire town was "flooded in minutes".
She said they had been "cut off" and left "isolated" after the floods.
Letur's mayor Sergio Marin told Spanish TV: “We couldn’t have predicted anything like this was going to happen. It’s a major catastrophe."
And Ricardo Gabaldn - mayor of Utiel, a town in Valencia - told national broadcaster RTVE that people in his town were "trapped like rats".
In Massannassa, on Valencia’s outskirts, a man died after getting trapped in a lift as he made his way to a flooded underground car park beneath his apartment to check on his vehicle.
Around 600 people were trapped in the Bonaire mall, Valencia’s largest shopping centre last night, after ground-floor flooding.
Elsewhere, in the Spanish city of Almería cars were destroyed by giant golf ball-sized hailstones that fell from the sky as a violent storm passed over last night.
Spain's King Felipe and Queen Letizia said they were devastated by the flooding.
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They said: "Strength, courage and all the necessary support for all those affected.
"Our warmest message and recognition to local and regional authorities and all emergency services, armed forces and state security forces and corps for the titanic work they have been doing from the very beginning."
Why was Spain hit by flooding?
Spain was hit by flash floods after the east of the country was hit by a meteorological phenomena known as a 'DANA'.
A DANA, or a 'cold drop' is technically a system where there is an isolated depression in the atmosphere is at high levels.
In layman's terms, more warm and moist Mediterranean air than usual was sucked high into the atmosphere after a cold system hit the country from the south.
The easterly wind then pushed all those clouds and rain into eastern Spain.
Three to four months of rain fell in some places over the space of 24 hours.
The DANA system hit southern Spain as it arrived from Morocco yesterday and is now expected to head west over southern Portugal.